Vendors upgrade pacts with range of IT wares

Information technology vendors used the occasion of the recent FOSE conference in Washington D.C. to unveil new product additions to federal contracts.

Vendors promoted a range of wares - from high-end PCs equipped with Pentium Pro chips to PC Cards designed for specialized security applications. In all about 400 vendors exhibited at the annual product show which focused heavily on PC hardware software and peripherals.

In PCs Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. exhibited its recently announced Equium line of desktop computers. The product previewed to federal customers last month will appear on the General Services Administration schedule April 1. Equium will ship in four configurations: the 5200D and 5160D which run Intel Corp.'s Pentium with MMX technology at 200 and 166 MHz respectively and the 6200D and 6200M which both run 200 MHz Pentium Pro chips. The 6200M is a mini-tower configuration.

Jan O'HARA federal sales manager with Toshiba said that in addition to carrying the products on its own schedule the company is negotiating letters of supply with such resellers as Government Technology Services Inc. and AmeriData Federal Systems.

Austin Computer Systems formerly IPC Technologies earlier this month added Austin Edge Duet notebooks to Sysorex Information Systems Inc.'s Naval Aviation Logistics Command Management Information System according to Greg Gonzales president and chief executive officer of Austin. The contract now features 133 MHz Pentium notebooks and lower-end models.

Austin also announced at FOSE that its desktop and portable products have been added to AVR Enterprises' GSA Schedule B/C. In addition BTG Inc. has agreed to sell Austin's Pentium-based Austin Edge CD and Austin Edge Duet notebooks under the BTG label Austin officials said.

"We hope to grow partnerships with integrators " Gonzales said.

Servers meanwhile continued to be a hot item in the federal market. Hewlett-Packard Co. for example has added its NetServer LD and LH Pro servers to the Army's Small Multiuser Computer II pact held by Telos Corp. according to Mike Gomez HP's program manager for strategic accounts for North America.

Compaq Computer Corp. also added a recently unveiled server to a federal contract. Compaq said its ProLiant 800 server is now on the company's Scientific and Engineering Workstation Procurement II pact with NASA. The company also added its Armada Notebook line to the contract which features Compaq's Professional Workstation products.

In software Dell Computer Corp. announced at FOSE that it has obtained "select" pricing from Microsoft Corp. which will allow the PC maker to offer such products as Microsoft's Office 97 at a discount. Roger Harden director of marketing for Dell Federal Sales said Dell is the first product manufacturer to offer select pricing on the schedule.

The arrangement "extends the benefit of buying from a direct marketer " Harden said. The pricing will allow Dell to offer Office 97 for $310 as opposed to the retail price of more than $500.

Networking Gets a Facelift

Networking gear was also the subject of technology refreshment. Peter Farrell the general manager of Litton/PRC Inc.'s Defense Departmentwide Supermini II contract said the company has added a range of Cisco Systems Inc. products including the company's 2500 4000 and 7000 routers and Stratacom hub products. The pact also features Oracle Corp.'s Oracle Network Server which will "allow big users to really use Oracle effectively in enterprise solutions " Farrell said. Farrell noted that the hardware and software buying period on Supermini has been extended through June 1 1998.

In peripherals Ricoh Corp. said it is beta testing with government customers the company's SecureFax PC Card. The product is designed to allow notebook users to communicate through a secure STU-III telephone with a secure fax modem. Irv Sentz a sales manager with Ricoh's National Accounts Division said the company will sell the product directly and through prime contractors possibly including Desktop V vendors Hughes Data Systems and Zenith Data Systems.